


A Curse For All Times And Seasons

by tielan



Category: Firefly, Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: intoabar, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-22
Updated: 2011-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-26 10:22:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/281949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tielan/pseuds/tielan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>May your life be interesting. (vis. "Oh God, Oh God, we're all gonna die...")</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Curse For All Times And Seasons

**Author's Note:**

> This was my original assignment for the intoabar challenge - Teyla walks into a bar and meets Wash! Except that I didn't get it in on time because I simply couldn't work out how the encounter went.

Hoban Washburne had seen all types and kinds of people walk into the myriad bars he'd been in through the years.

He'd seen the swaggerers, who strode in like they owned the place. (Jayne came to mind, oddly enough, although that was less because he owned the place and more because he was looking forward to a drink and a fight.)

He'd seen the surveyers, who walked in, took a good hard around. (That was Mal to a tee, and Zöe , too, because they'd been in too many tight spots during the war to let themselves be caught in yet another tight spot.)

He'd seen the slinkers, who came in as unobtrusively as possible, as though not quite sure they should be here. (He'd never seen Simon walk into one of these establishments before, but he was fairly certain that the young doctor would have walked straight out.)

This woman was the kind that surveyed the room. In fact, glancing over his shoulder in extreme obviousness and a complete lack of subtlety, he noted that she checked everything and everyone out before she started across the room.

So this was probably the part where he got told to keep his eyes to himself. Or slapped. Probably slapped. Wash wasn't too sure about his chances there - then again, the woman wasn't intimidating the way Zöe  could be.

She'd crossed half the distance between them when her lips curved in a smile, and Wash suddenly realised that, oh, hell, she _was_ as intimidating as Zöe , albeit in an entirely different way.

"Perhaps you could help me."

So, better than a slap. "Perhaps I could. Hi, I'm Hoburn Wash and I'm married." He hadn't intended to put it quite like that. "I mean, not that that has anything to do with the conversation. It's just that, you know, a mysterious, sexy woman walks into a bar and meets my eyes across a...well, maybe the room isn't crowded, but, you know...it's noisy. And oh God, I wish my wife would walk in right now and rescue me. Except that if she did and she found me talking to you, I'd probably be in so much trouble - not that I'm flirting with you, exactly, it's just that..." He trailed off. Took a deep breath. Blew it out. "This is probably the part where I should shut up."

By now, her eyebrows were halfway up her brow. "In truth, all I wished to know was what this planet is called."

"Uh, Persephone."

"Persephone." She looked around the room, and her expression took in the bar lighting, the grim barman polishing glasses, the feed that was showing live wrestling. "This is not Pegasus is it?"

"Pegasus? Uh, no. That's on Bellerophon, which is over on the other side of the system... You're a long way from home."

"So it seems." She eased herself down onto the stool beside him with something like a sigh. It occurred to Wash that she hadn't asked him if she could. Not that he was going to object - he was married, not blind. "What drink would you recommend?"

"Uh, well, it depends what kind of a mood you're in. And what you drink." Wash indicated the bottle. "Ale? Wine? Spirits? Actually, I wouldn't recommend the spirits in this place - they're likely to clean your tonsils out."

It wasn't a fancy drinking establishment - not something that Inara, or even Simon, might frequent. But it wasn't one of the subterranean bars that Mal would go to find business either.

Comfortable drinking, anonymously.

"Hoburn Washburne!"

Well, mostly anonymously.

He turned on his chair. He shouldn't have. He knew the voice, knew the kind of trouble he was in. The man was big - big as Jayne, but meatier. Heftier. Wash had good reason to remember just how much heft Boven could wield when he chose. "Bovan, long time no see."

"You left me stranded on Haymore docks - do you know how long it took me to find another pilot!"

"I told you I was leaving! I even gave a month's notice!"

"You cost me, Washburne! I had to wait another month before I got another pilot in!"

"Well, maybe you should have learned to fly your own ship!"

Wash knew it was the wrong thing to say the instant it was said. Bovan had never done well with criticism - just one of the reasons Wash had left the ship.

Knuckles cracked. "Maybe you shouldn't have run off without letting me know--"

"I let you know!" He wasn't going to hunch over, even if the prospect of being beaten up loomed in his immediate future. "You just didn't want to hire a new pilot!"

"I--"

"Excuse me," said the woman at the bar. Her voice lifted, just sharp enough to cut through the start of what was probably going to be Bovan's threat. She indicated the drink on the bartop. "You are interrupting my drink."

Bovan smiled - at least, that was what Wash presumed the grimace was, with Bovan, it was hard to tell. "Now you just run along, little lady. I don't got no problem with you, but your friend here-- Aaaaaarhgh!"

Wash reflected that he'd never seen anyone move quite that fast before. All he was sure he'd seen was that she'd gripped the arm in front of her, then done some kind of...movement. And now Bovan was bent back over the bar with one arm trapped behind him, her forearm pressing up into his throat, and his wrist in her spare hand.

"I do not know you," said the woman with a voice that remained eerily quiet. "I do not like you. I am not in a place that I know - I do not believe I am even in my own galaxy - and I do not know how it is that I have come to be here."

Wash glanced around the room, checking the bartender and any security he might have called while there. While they were the focus of some interest, no-one was moving to intervene in the scene. At least, not yet. This was a bar for a quiet drink, not a drink before a noisy fight. Even the barman appeared to have hesitated behind the bar, uncertain if he should call for security, or lock down the bar area.

"What the hell are you--?"

She shifted a little, and the man made a noise like a squashed frog. Wash began to suggest that maybe a little less pressure might make Bovan more amenable - or even able to speak - then closed his mouth.

"Now," the woman continued, in the tones of someone who felt they could do this all day, "I am going to let go of you. I suggest that if you have an issue with this man, you pursue it civilly."

Wash noted she didn't say what would happen if Bovan pursued it _un_ civilly. But then, she didn't really need to.

The woman glanced at Wash, who grimaced, but nodded - then leaped back as Bovan got to his feet roaring and swung for the woman.

She dodged the swing, did something that involved grabbing his wrist again, hooking her leg around his and laying Bovan out on the floor.

"I do not believe he intends to be civil," was her observation as she fell into a fighter's stance.

Wash stared. She was maybe two-thirds the size of his wife, but the resemblance was unmistakeable - that sharp focus and the way her eyes went flat - and a bit of a turn-on. He was crazy about Zöe  and her ability to break him with one hand - okay, so maybe not the ability to break him with one hand, but the fact that she could? Very hot. Which he would never mention to anyone - and certainly not Mal, who loved Zöe  in his own way, but most definitely not like that and didn't get how Wash _could_.

And he sincerely hoped that none of this was showing on his face, because if so, then given how neatly this woman had put Bovan out on the floor, Wash didn't stand a chance.

Nice as it was to have this stranger willing to defend him, Wash wasn't willing to see this young woman end up hurt on his behalf.

"Okay." He tossed some credits to the bartop. "I think it's time we left."

He didn't know where the 'we' came from, or what made him think she'd come with him. But the words were out and he could hardly take it back with a woman who could probably break his neck with a twist of her wrist.

She indicated the door with one hand, and a moment later, they were out on the main street and slipping through the midday crowds of Whitehall. Her hand found his in the melee, fingers cool and strong, and Wash nearly shook her off because - hello, married man and warrior wife - but didn't because otherwise she might lose him and he had questions.

The scent of garlic stung the air with a sizzling noise and fragrant steam swirled up from the streetside vendors as they cooked for their midday customers. The musky aromas of barbecued birds wafted out from one shopfront, while the rich, sharp scent of wine vinegar rolled out of another, where a row of girls pinched dough rounds around mincemeat parcels with nimble fingers.

If Bovan followed them, Wash couldn't see, and the stranger didn't say.

They paused at the edge of the docklands, once the crowds had thinned out, and she dropped his hand as she surveyed the docks where the spaceships waited. "You said this planet was called Persephone."

"Yes."

"I have never heard of a planet called Persephone before. And certainly none like this." She was staring at the nearest ship - a Shadow 4700 series. Ugly ship. Handled like a brick. "You said that Pegasus...was on the other side of the system? So it is a planet, then?"

Wash was beginning to have some suspicions about this woman. Namely that she was crazy, although maybe not in the way River was crazy. But he was curious. Really curious. Because she'd kind of saved his life, and she was pretty and a mystery and he didn't have a crush. Not even a small one.

"Did you really mean what you said about this not being your galaxy? Because...uh...I think I'd know if there were other galaxies to fly around in."

She shrugged, only briefly taking her eyes off the Shadow 4700 before her attention was caught by a group of women who were catcalling a group of men who walked by. Not Companions, of course, given they were working the docks. "This is clearly not Pegasus, and you have already said that this is not Earth."

Wash stared.

"Earth? You mean...Earth-that-was, don't you?"

Her brows lifted. "I believe it was Earth-that- _is_ the last time I spoke with someone from there."

"Last time you--" Wash broke off. This was going into an area that was seriously insane. "You didn't break out of the crazyhouse, did you? Right, I'm just asking..." The expression on her face was unnerving, to say the least. "Right, um. Look, I'd take you home with me, but Mal would have-- And that's not even thinking about what Zöe  would--"

She began to smile, one side of her mouth curving up in a wry grin as she let him babble himself out. Wash bit down on what he was going to say next.

"This is where my wife would tell me I talk too much. And where she kicks my ass for bringing strange women back to the ship."

"You presume I am coming with you."

"Right. Which I'd like to say now isn't something you have to do."

But if she didn't come back to the ship, Wash would have to follow her - at least a little way to satisfy his curiosity. Because 'I do not think I'm even in my galaxy' and 'this is not Earth' changed the whole flight pattern, like unexpected turbulence coming into atmo from the smooth of space.

Wash preferred the smooth landings - every pilot did, but there was nothing like the adrenaline rush from bringing your ship down safely after unexpected turbulence.

Her mouth twitched. "John would probably say it was unwise to go home with strange men. Although he cannot exactly talk."

"Well, if it helps, I'm Hoburn Washburne."

She tilted her head to one side. "And do you like football, ferris wheels, and things that go faster than 300 miles per hour, Hoburn Washburne?"

"Sort of. Well, not football. Not my game so much. And there aren't too many ferris wheels out..." He takes a deep breath and tells himself to stop babbling. Her smile is twitching at the corner of her mouth now. "You know, feel free to stop me at any time."

"Perhaps I enjoy it. You remind me of a friend of mine."

"Does your friend have a name? Do _you_ have a name? And will you tell me it?"

Again, her mouth twitched at the corners, but she answered.

"I am Teyla Emmagan, daughter of Tagan, of Athos and the city of the Ancestors." Which meant less than nothing to Wash. But it was an answer - for all the good it did him. "Now are you going to take me home with your or not?"

Wash trusted she was joking. He thought she was joking, but it would be just his luck to take this woman back to the ship and discover she was serious.

But...Earth-that-is? Other galaxies? And a hot warrior-woman who wanted to come home with him?

They said 'may you live in interesting times' was actually a curse. As the woman regarded him with laughter in her eyes, Wash reflected that they weren't far wrong.

He sighed as he turned towards the ship. "This way."

Zöe was definitely going to kill him.


End file.
